Each publication is an opportunity to meet our audience. Just as you should have a social media analysis at an earlier stage in the design of the strategy, the truth is that the action allows us to better understand the behavior of our community.
If we talk about social sciences this is nothing new. The theory of action research has already demonstrated its capabilities in areas such as communication or local development and highlights the importance of interventions for knowledge. It is not about analyzing what is prior to make decisions, but also analyzes the evolution of a community in terms of the different actions performed on it consciously. Something like learning by experience.
From this point of view, we find fundamental ideas can be very fruitful for social media:
* The analysis is oriented to action. Has to solve a specific problem, responding to an interest and give all the bases to design or modify a strategy. Failure to do so will cause the famous paralysis by analysis.
* Any plan of action should be accompanied by an evaluation method to establish whether the objectives are being met.
* Flexibility: The analysis should be rooted in the objectives of each strategy or each campaign. Depending on each project, we establish different evaluation methods.
Social media involves a new way to communicate and for marketing a new way of doing things. I like the maxim “soon fail, fail quick, fail cheap.” The requirement not to block us and start posting or Tuite not against that there is a parallel path of analysis that follows this series of tests, small mistakes and successes.
Although each social media strategy is an analysis plan that fits the specific objectives, to meet our audience as we publish can do simple things like:
* Create reports with links to more clicks and a more RT tweets. It allows us to see the interest of the audience as the theme, content quality link and copy quality.
* Create lists of influential in terms of actual experience (not just the number of followers). List users that make our tweets have more clicks or more RT.
* Use Google Analytics notes. Social media cause hearing very strong peaks in blogs and websites. Reviewing the notes in Analytics can quickly see what actions have generated more traffic.
* If you launch a # hashtag for a campaign, see what we have achieved more RT tweet and clicks.
* Analyze the impact of adding RT followers of users who have made RT. A little more sophisticated (for large accounts need software that allows it). In this way, We can see the scope of each tweet that we emit and what content interests our most influential supporters.
* Other ratios are those, which indicate the concentration (percentage of hits on the best link, or tweet RT in most RT). In addition, mentions by followers, RT by followers, interactions by fans, etc. to see the quality of followers / fans.
* We can spin finer, tagging URLs for measuring the impact on the web using Google Analytics. This is far more advanced. You can browse this tutorial on the labeling of URL and the web that helps build links easily (HootSuite also offers this possibility in the “breakthrough” that appears when you insert a link als). This is a good first step in measuring the more tangible aspects, leads, sales, etc.
To measure the return we can differentiate between tangible results (ROI or cost savings) and intangible (reputation). In case of ROI, provided we can measure through a website (online store, for example) the labeling of the link is key. For the cost savings is necessary to develop a specific methodology for each project.
See how varied our online reputation is also critical to evaluate our business, especially in social media. To be able to establish useful measures we need to identify different types of opinions or comments in terms of: subject, user, type of site and sentiment, and then measuring the volume and intensity or dispersion. Comparing these numbers in time we know how to evolve our reputation for the different communities and evaluate the success of our strategy.
Although the practical implementation of this subject deserves much more than a post, I want to stress is that research should not remain as alien to action. The research aimed at a more concrete problem and it is, the more fruitful is the analysis. There is nothing better than to learn to interact and learn.
